


what i have is right here

by epiproctan



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Getting Together, M/M, Mild Smut, Multi, Mutual Pining, Pining, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-30
Updated: 2016-10-30
Packaged: 2018-08-27 21:22:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8417293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/epiproctan/pseuds/epiproctan
Summary: Sometimes it makes him think of their Garrison days. When Keith was a distant white-hot shooting star he chased because he didn’t know what else to do with him. When Shiro was something even farther, something brighter, the center of a galaxy that he never even hoped to enter. But all masses have gravitational pull. Everything in the universe attracts everything else. 
 Lance is grateful that theirs was strong enough to tug each other in.   or, a treatise on waiting





	

**Author's Note:**

> [i wrote something not named after a muse song for once](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PElhV8z7I60)

I.

            A.

                        1.

 _“Wait for me. Things will be better when I come back. If you still want to—no, don’t say that, you don’t know what could happen between now and then—if you still want to be with me, then I’d be more than happy. Okay? Wait for me.”_  

                        2.

Keith jolts awake.

It takes him a moment to place where he is between the frantic breaths he’s heaving. But he’s here, he’s definitely _here_. The warmth of Lance curled against his side is stabilizing. The hum of the castle is all around him, enveloping. It’s a low, subtle noise, muted and comfortable. In the beginning it would keep him awake at night. It’s so different from the organic sounds of the desert. Too consistent, too lifeless. Now he can only hear it if he tries.

He tucks his head into Lance’s neck, finding the rhythm of his breathing. Lance hasn’t stirred. Lance can sleep through just about anything, which is why it’s okay for Keith to press his lips to his throat and uses the solid feel of his warmth to pull himself back together.

It’s not like he has nightmares. Not the way he knows Shiro does. But sometimes he feels lost again. Sometimes he wakes up and doesn’t know where he is, assumes he’s in that shack again, and chokes on the feeling of being misplaced. Nothing keeping him pulled down, letting him float away from Earth’s surface, just like he’d always wanted.

It had always been a solid, unavoidable truth in his life, his disbelonging. There’d been no such thing as home, so without the Garrison, what was he? But he has a place up here though, in the void of space, where no living creature truly belongs, really. It’s in Red’s cockpit, it’s the fist curled around his bayard, it’s the banter at the dining room table, it’s in Lance’s bed. He lets all this pull him in, and keeps a close orbit around these things that exert their forces on him. He’s a Paladin of Voltron.

Lance sighs in his sleep and murmurs something incomprehensible.

Keith remembers where he is, and closes his eyes. It’s a lot easier to get back to sleep with Lance breathing into his hair.

            B.

 _“Wait for me,”_ he’d said.

So Keith had waited. Keith had waited and waited and waited. He waited in the billowing sand, in achingly arid days that cracked his lips, in cold nights when the moon was new and dark, in sunrises that found him pinning pictures to his wall, in his bed that he checked for scorpions before climbing into, in the callous glint of faraway stars, in the threadbare blanket he tugged around his shoulders when he rested his forehead against the windowpane and stared out at the sky. The nights had been too dark and the mornings had been too bright but Keith had pulled those words into his chest and found them curled there, day after day, week after week.

He knew Shiro would come home. He could feel it, like he could feel the thrumming energy out there, static electricity running through the marrow of his bones. But Keith was never a patient person. He slept fitfully, if he slept at all, his mind full of empty unknowns. He never sat down fully in chairs, always on the edge of them. He dreamt of black holes. He woke to sand in his eyes and mouth.

It was for Shiro, because Shiro was the only place he’d ever known.

            C.

                        1.

Keith had kissed Shiro once.

It was something like an accident, but these things don’t actually happen by accident. They’d been laughing warm and low about something or other, pushed too close together in that way that they always were. Keith’s shoulder wedged against Shiro’s chest, the strength of his arm solidly behind him, their faces near enough that Keith could feel the ends of his hair brush against him. Whatever they were laughing about was unmemorable, at least in the context of other things that were happening. Like Keith’s swooping stomach, his pounding heart.

They’d both stopped laughing and breathed at the same time, and looked at each other. For all Keith knew, Shiro’s eyes may have been the only thing to exist in all of reality at that moment, dark and welcoming in a way that Keith had never been looked at before. A spark of exhilaration burst in Keith’s chest, frantic, and desperate, and scared. They both froze, checking themselves, checking each other. Then they swayed into it, their noses brushing first, skin ghosting against skin, gradual and slow. Keith trembled, closed his eyes.

 _“Wait for me,”_ he’d said, soon after that. Keith didn’t go to see the launch. He’d been too busy savoring the lingering feeling on his lips. He’d been too busy waiting.

                        2.

Keith has kissed Lance hundreds of times. Maybe thousands of times.

The first time it happened, Keith felt himself being drawn in like a comet to the sun. But gravitation is nothing compared to the attractive force of Lance’s eyes peering up at him through thick lashes, so close in a way that had Keith quivering before they’d even touched.

It felt like betrayal.

“ _Wait for me_ ,” he’d said. Keith was still waiting then. Maybe Shiro had returned, but he could barely remember what happened in those dark days, and Keith knew that sometimes the surrounding memory was fuzzy, unvisitable, as well. Shiro didn’t know what he had promised Keith, or maybe he did and was just taking his time with it, as Shiro did. That was okay with Keith. He had waited this long. He could wait a little longer. Impatiently, of course, but he could.

Except he found himself kissing Lance a second time. And later, a third, up against the kitchen wall. Then a fourth, on the couch in the common room. A fifth, in his chair on the bridge. A sixth, horizontal on Lance’s bed. And by that time Keith’s head was so full of Lance, Lance, _Lance_ —

It’s not like he doesn’t think of Shiro anymore. But the one time Shiro had broached the subject it had been to reassure him, in a subtle, gentle way, that maybe things were too complicated to work out between them. Keith had then been able to let go of the one thing that was keeping him from telling Lance exactly how he felt, exactly what he wanted to be, and embraced the fact that Shiro had been half right all along.

 

II.

Shiro thinks that maybe, at some level, he possibly would be justified in holding this against Lance. If this was someone else’s story, if he were listening to a friend’s description of themselves in this situation, and they told him that they found Lance deplorable, Shiro would sympathize. Shiro would advise compassion, but he would understand.

It is Lance who is kissing Keith now, after all. Now, as in _right_ now, in the middle of the common room, like they’re not in a place where ex-almost-lovers can walk in on them, and feel embarrassed and guilty. Wrongfully, of course. This is a public space.

But he actually _doesn’t_. He doesn’t hold this against Lance.

Part of it is logical. He knows that what Lance is doing isn’t Lance’s fault. If it’s anyone’s fault it’s Shiro’s own. He’s the one who _forgot_ , in all the sweeping, swirling events of the abduction, of his brief return to Earth, of becoming a pilot of Voltron, what he had promised Keith. He’s the one who kept his uneasiness and stomachaches to himself as he watched Keith grow closer to Lance every day. He’s the one who, upon finally remembering, knew it was too late for him when he saw Keith and Lance’s legs tangle together on the couch during movie night. He’s the one who hinted to Keith that it wouldn’t have worked between them anyway, that it wasn’t a good thing, that they have too much to worry about now with Voltron, that he was broken, that Keith could be happier with Lance. Lance doesn’t even know that Shiro feels this way about Keith. How could he ever, when Shiro keeps it so clamped down, even to himself?

But then there’s a part of it that is wildly, violently _illogical_ , in a way that makes Shiro’s fingers twitch. He has these images, moments, seared into his mind, for some reason. Lance standing on a chair in the dining room, one foot propped up on the table, explaining to everyone exactly what he’s going to do when he meets Zarkon. Lance taking off his helmet after a battle, his shoulder a little dinged but his mouth grinning wide, his hair mussed with sweat, turning to Shiro and lauding his own accomplishments. Lance diving in during training to deflect an attack aimed at his back. Lance draped casually over the common room couch, looking a little too much like a long-limbed, smooth-skinned Earth deity to truly fit in there, patting the seat next to him and telling Shiro he works too hard, that it’s time to take a break. When Shiro wakes in a sweat in the middle of the night and can’t fall back asleep until he rids himself of visions of Galra hovering over him, these are the kinds of things he thinks of.

So he doesn’t hold this against Lance. Not at all. In fact, despite his shortcomings, he really likes Lance. As a fellow paladin. As a friend. As the guy who was so secretly starstruck the first time the two of them were alone in a room together he tried to hide his staring behind an upside-down magazine written in Altean script. As the person who puts that little quirk of a smile on Keith’s face with his antics. As someone who Shiro genuinely enjoys talking to when they’re both up at 4 am, staring out into the cosmos, wondering how out of all the people in the entire universe _they’re_ the ones who ended up here.

It’s also no small matter that Lance is undoubtedly the better boyfriend for Keith. For starters, Lance probably doesn’t wake Keith in the night with the thrashing limbs and pained moans that Shiro would. They’re more similar in personality than Keith and Shiro are, and Lance has that incredible ability to drive Keith to achieve through competition. Keith is thrilled by every second of banter, every moment of opposition, because it presents a challenge. His eyes light up with that rough fire whenever they clash, which isn’t entirely a thing Shiro can provide to him. Also, Lance is not the leader. Unlike Shiro, he’s allowed to take moments to think selfishly, want things for himself, play favorites. That’s not a luxury Shiro can afford.

And then, of course, there’s the simple fact that Lance is whole, pure, innocent, clean, in a way that Shiro can never reclaim.

The bottom line, Shiro supposes, is that if he has to watch Keith’s face brighten when someone enters the room who isn’t him, he’s glad it’s Lance. If he had to sit through months of two people bickering continuously to mask their sexual tension, he’s glad it was theirs. If he has to stumble in on two people using the training deck to have an absurdly domestic conversation about _“That one time before we were together when you—”_ while laying on top of each other, he’s glad it’s them. If he has to allow someone to whisk away what maybe, in another life, could have been feelings towards someone else, he’s glad it’s Keith. He’s glad they’re together. _He’s glad they're together._

He thinks this even as he comes to and blinks his eyes open and it’s Lance kneeling over him, his eyes wide and his hands hovering over his chest like skittish butterflies.

“Dude, are you okay?” Lance asks him. “You got hit so hard.”

Shapes shift in Shiro’s head, time becomes undone and gets put back together. Things besides Lance slowly slide into focus. He’s in the training deck, he can recognize that. He was training. He was here with Lance (who, it turns out, can be tempted into a little extra training time when Shiro’s involved). His abdomen hurts, and the back of his head, which presumably knocked against the ground in the process of coming to rest here.

“Come on, Shiro, answer me,” Lance says, letting his usual dramatics seep into his tone.

Shiro doesn’t like how this keeps happening. How he can get lost in things that aren’t real right now. How little things in the physical world can trigger big frantic crises inside his head. He can be training one second and in a cramped cell, on an operating table, staring down opponents the next.

The memories are slipping away now. The darkness and the pain that was wholly tangible only seconds ago evaporates as Lance puts his hand on his shoulder and shakes a little bit. He can’t remember landing here on the ground but it seems he did _hard_.

“I’m okay,” he says, pushing himself up.

The creases in Lance’s forehead smooth out, his frown disappears. “You scared me for a second there,” he says. He reaches around Shiro’s head and cups his hand at the back of his skull, right where it must’ve bounced against the ground. When his fingertips press in, they both wince. “That doesn’t feel good.”

Lance doesn’t seem to realize it but as he runs his fingers along the back of Shiro’s skull, he’s dragging him closer. He’s gentle as he thumbs against the tender area, his palm warm, not seeming to care that Shiro’s short hair is slick with sweat. His lips curl back into a small frown, and this close Shiro can see where his eyelashes grow in thick clumps around those blue eyes.

“Let’s get some ice on that,” Lance says, pulling his hand away. Shiro hadn’t noticed he was leaning into his touch until it’s not there anymore.

Shiro doesn’t notice a lot of things, he realizes later.

 

III.

Lance watches Keith wake up in the morning.

He’s all crusted eyes and frowns and groans and black hair sticking out in every direction. Fittingly, it looks like a lion’s mane. He flails out an arm to stretch with a sigh and nearly gives Lance a black eye. He’s as aggressive in sleep as he is in wakefulness.

But he blooms, opening his bleary eyes, unfurling his limbs, stretching his mouth wide in a yawn. His body is mostly bare and Lance can’t help but watch the way the muscle and bone move beneath his pale skin. There’s an openness to his face, vulnerable and soft, that’s never there in his waking hours. He’s able to be captured in these moments, like Lance could wrap his arms around him and calm him, tame him down from the wildfire that he is at all other times.

He catches Lance’s gaze and his eyebrows lower.

“What?”

“Your dumb mullet’s sticking up,” Lance says. Because there’s no way to really explain in words how utterly _fucked_ he is, how bad he’s had it for Keith since day one, how every time he thinks he’s landed he just keeps tumbling. He can’t really tell him that he considers himself incredibly lucky to just be looking at him right now, forget the fact that Keith is in his arms and pressed up against his bare skin.

Keith snorts and rests his forehead against Lance’s collarbone. “Don’t care.” When he yawns again, his breath fans against Lance’s chest.

Lance could easily fall back asleep like this, and he knows Keith can too. It’s happened before. Last week they slept so late that Shiro had to come get them for their drills. It was a bad time all around. Lance doesn’t know exactly what the deal is there, what’s happened between Keith and Shiro, but he knows it’s something. He also knows it’s not really any of his business because whatever it is seems to mostly be in the past. Shiro harbors no resentment and Keith throws himself all into Lance. Superficially, their relationship resembles nothing but an intimate camaraderie. But he hears the gentle tone in Keith’s voice when he talks about Shiro, sees the light in Shiro’s eyes when he looks at Keith.

Lance isn’t jealous. Actually, he finds it all relatable more than anything else. He _gets_ admiring Shiro so much it makes his chest ache and he _gets_ how attractive Keith is with his sharp eyes and quick maneuvers.

Garrison days. Sometimes it makes him think of their Garrison days. When Keith was a distant white-hot shooting star he chased because he didn’t know what else to do with him. When Shiro was something even farther, something brighter, the center of a galaxy that he never even hoped to enter. But all masses have gravitational pull. Everything in the universe attracts everything else.

Lance is grateful that theirs was strong enough to tug each other in.

 

IV.

“You want us to _what_?” Keith asks.

He’s standing here on the bridge, beside Shiro, since they’ve both been summoned straight from the training deck by Coran. It’s repair day, or something like that. As if every day isn’t repair day.

“I just need you two to nip outside for a tick and fix the wires on the deltaic capacitor!” Coran says. “Unfortunately due to its function it can only be accessed from the outside, and while the ship is in orbit.”

“Wouldn’t Pidge or Hunk be better at something like this?” Keith asks.

“We need them in here so they can help adjust the auxiliary antipolar energy modulator,” Coran says. “Don’t worry, what you’re doing is so simple even a snarhat could do it!”

Shiro looks down at Keith, and when they make eye contact they both shrug. Well, if even a snarhat could do it.

So then they’re skimming along the ship through zero-gravity, their jetpacks blazing as they graze its surface, searching for the correct panel. With Coran’s directions in their ears they find it and pry it open to face the nothingness.

A huge dark circle is cut out of the stars behind them. This planet is apparently uninhabited and resourceless, and therefore of no use to the Galra, making it an ideal location for doing basic repairs. Despite that, its presence looms in a near-ominous way, hovering over their shoulders as they work. Shiro catches it out of the corner of his eye whenever he turns to talk to Keith, and each time it spooks him, just a little bit, like the shadow of a coat hung in the corner that looks like a figure in the dark.

They follow Coran’s instructions, Keith holding the panel open as Shiro rewires some machinery. He doesn’t pretend that he has any idea what he’s actually doing, but Coran guides him with Pidge’s help when his wording is unclear.

“Now if you could just finishing dusting off the surface of the capacitor, your work is done!” Coran says. “But first hold on tight, we’re testing the parabolic accelerator, so there might be some turbulence.”

Shiro and Keith barely have time to look at each other, eyes wide, before the Castle-ship shudders under their hands. In the very next second Shiro finds himself flipping backwards through open space, the stars flurrying around him. He instinctively thrusts out his arms to catch something, _anything_ , but he’s in space and there’s nothing out here except himself.

Until something about the same velocity as him bumps against his side. He grips onto it, and together the two of them stop their spinning with help from their jetpacks. It’s Keith, clutching Shiro with just as much desperation as Shiro is holding him. They slow to a float, Keith’s hands wrapped around Shiro’s forearms, Shiro clinging to the sides of Keith’s shoulders.

Shiro looks past him, squints into the distance. The Castle-ship is far away, but it’s visible.

“They’ll come get us,” Shiro says.

Keith nods, lips thin, and then tries his comm. Its static only echoes emptily in Shiro’s ear. Too far to reach the castle, certainly. He feels along his connection with his lion and gives a beckoning tug, but he knows that she can’t hear him.

“We’ll just have to sit tight for a minute,” Shiro says. He’s not worried. They both have plenty of air, so even if the others take a bit to notice they’ll live. They just need to be patient.

He chuckles to himself. That’s never been a strong point of Keith’s.

Neither of them let go. Shiro doesn’t think he can.

In fact, after a moment, Keith is shifting. It’s his right hand first, sliding up the outside of Shiro’s arm. His left hand follows, mirrors, along the Galra-given limb, and then he’s ducking under Shiro’s arms to slip his palms around and flat against Shiro’s back. Here he hesitates, barely half an arm’s length between their chests. But then Keith gives a yank in his very Keith-like way, and their torsos crash together. Shiro’s sure their armor would’ve made a hard _clack_ if there was a medium for sound out here.

Keith presses his entire front to Shiro, thigh-to-thigh, pelvis-to-pelvis. He wraps his arms around Shiro’s waist and holds himself low on his body, so if Shiro wants to see his face he has to crane his neck downwards. Shiro glides his own arms around Keith’s shoulders, locking him into place.

They don’t look at each other. They look at the dark planet, unlit by a sun or a moon. Its surface is utterly indiscernible, an empty mark on the stretch of space. It feels like it could consume them, open its mouth and swallow them whole. Shiro can hear Keith breathing, in and out, in and out, and it’s the one thing keeping him moored.

“Do you ever think about…how we’re just…out here?” Keith asks.

Shiro’s eyes find him, just in time.

Golden light splashes against the side of Keith’s face.

He and Shiro both turn their heads. The enormous, featureless mass before them suddenly gains a blazing rim of white, the barest platinum crescent growing over its edge. The rays of a star, stretching, reaching, peek around the planet, setting its outline on fire. It’s so raw, natural, powerful, that Shiro’s breath is torn from his throat.

He moves an arm from around Keith’s shoulders up to cup the back of his helmet, and drags his head in to rest against his chest. He lowers his chin and leans it on the top of him, watching the sunrise.

“I’m sorry, Keith,” he says. “I’m so sorry.”

There’s a crackle, and Allura’s voice is loud in their ears.

“Shiro? Keith? Please hang on a tick, we’ll be on our way to get you shortly.”

“Roger that,” they both reply. Keith’s arms tighten around Shiro’s waist.

 

V.

            A.

“We’ve got visual,” Pidge says.

The silhouette of Shiro and Keith, dark against the brightening planet, blows up on her laptop screen.

“Isn't that your boyfriend floating around in some other guy’s arms?” Pidge asks Lance flatly. “What’re you gonna do about that?”

Lance beams. “I’m gonna join ‘em.”

            B.

Allura lets Lance go without question, and he pilots Blue out.

“Come get us when I call you,” Lance says to her, and launches himself from her mouth like he’s diving off a cliff into the sea. He turns his jetpack up to full speed, eyes trained on Shiro and Keith, keeping his course steady. They don’t even know he’s coming; they’re entirely focused on the light illuminating the surface of the planet, slowly revealing swirls of otherworldly orange and gray, tinged with luminous pinks and purples.

Space is a vacuum, so even when he turn his propulsion off inertia sails him towards them. He collides with them, grabbing onto whatever he can reach, and the impact sends them tumbling a second time, head over heels.

“Lance!” shouts Keith. He’s half-laughing, half-scolding, his voice breathless in exhilaration and terror. It sends a tremor down Lance’s spine.

Shiro rights them with a blast of his jetpack and they come to a stop. Lance has somehow wedged himself into them, one of his arms slung around Shiro’s waist, his other around Keith’s shoulder, and they’re both holding him in tight like they don’t want him to float away either, gripping onto corners of his suit.

“Some warning, next time, would be appreciated,” Shiro says, but he’s grinning. Lance can see the crinkle of his eyes through his face shield.

Lance claws up their bodies to see between them, the mountainous terrain of the planet before them revealed. The sun has cleared its edge, round and fiercely majestic, gracing the surface with its light. The planet is streaked with colors Lance has never seen before: eye-burning purples, stinging neon greens, popping oranges, deep fiery blues. Every second the light touches more and more, revealing yellow and red clouds, enormous spires of magenta that rise from the rocky surface.

In this moment he is infinitesimally small, and he wraps his arms tighter around Shiro and Keith, until they’re all pressed snug, no space between them. They return the gesture, leaning heads into each other. Keith wraps his leg around Lance’s like an anchor. Their faces all angle towards the view.

 _Hey, Blue_ , Lance calls into the emptiness. He can feel her presence at his back.

Hands linger as they climb one-by-one into the cockpit. They take off their helmets inside as Lance half pilots, half gives Blue the lead towards the castle. Keith and Shiro inhale deeply.

            C.

They fall asleep on the couch in the common room, Shiro’s arm around Keith’s shoulder, Keith curled into his chest, Lance draped across the width of their laps.

 

VI.

            A.

“What are you two doing?”

Keith finishes swinging himself up above the Black Lion’s eye, joining Lance there, before craning his neck to look down at Shiro. He’s half hanging out of the lion’s mouth, his body twisted upwards towards them. It’s one smooth expanse between here and there, the lion’s face having few handholds and little friction. He gets the feeling that the lions’ heads are not meant for scaling, but how else is someone supposed to get to the top?

“Climbing!” Lance says, already heading further, probably in an attempt to scramble up an ear.

“On my lion?” Shiro asks.

Keith shrugs before going after Lance. “She’s the tallest.”

It’s not a bad idea, which was why Keith didn’t say no when Lance suggested it. If they’re going to be sitting here parked on this planet anyway they may as well be doing something interesting with their time. It’s just the three of them out here, and their lions, and _nothing_ else. This planet’s surface is devoid of anything but a shimmering layer of water as far as any of them can see, and the reflection of the expanse of stars overhead speckles the surface. The planet has three moons, and the Black Lion is sitting in one, the water at her feet milky and white. Their surroundings are both black and lustrous, darkness spangled with pinpoints of light.

Somewhere out there on the planet, Allura is doing some negotiation thing. Whatever species of alien lives here is not fond of visitors, but they agreed to meet with Allura anyway, provided that she bring no companions. There was little concern over this, since the civilization is known to be neither aggressive nor under Galra influence, but they’d been surprised by less in the past. This leaves Shiro, Keith, and Lance hiding out, in quick flying distance of the alien city, presumably ready to stage a rescue at a moment’s notice.

But all’s been quiet, and out here in this remote area, all there really is to do is climb the Black Lion. Luckily the air on this planet is breathable, warm, and pleasant. Lance has stripped down to only his pants, his other pieces of armor probably littered all over the inside of Blue’s cockpit. Keith has foregone his helmet.

“Coming, Shiro?” Lance throws over his shoulder. He’s resting against the side of the Lion’s ear, everything about him made pale in the light of the moons. He shines, too, against the backdrop of stars and twisting galaxies.

Helplessly, Keith catches him in his hands, checks him with his hip, and kisses the side of his neck, before turning around to watch Shiro pull himself onto the Lion’s snout. He’s effortless in this, his strong body lending him easy grace. Keith settles beside the ear opposite Lance, half watching Shiro heave himself up onto his Lion’s eye, half watching Lance glow.

Shiro comes between them, sitting when Lance does, at the crown of the head. He’s star-gazing, lost in his head like he’s lost in the universe, his eyes open wide to the possibility of what else is out there and the knowledge that it’s not all good. Keith slides his focus past him, to Lance.

He’s never really considered this before, but he unquestionably wants it.

It’s a warm, uncharged silence before Lance breaks it.

“That bunch of stars looks like you, Keith,” he says. “There’s your grumpy face.”

“ _What?_ Where?”

“There!”

Shiro laughs, and Keith squints into the sky. He can’t see it, so Lance scoots, and so does Keith, and they’re boxing Shiro in while Keith follows the point of Lance’s finger into the sky.

The moment Shiro realizes he’s trapped, caged in, Keith can tell immediately. The way he stiffens is not all at once. He straightens up from his core first, his spine stretching, before his shoulders tighten. Keith sees this out of the corner of his eye, and lays back against the hard surface of the Lion.

Lance follows easily and asks what Keith sees, so he invents a desert fox in the imaginary lines crisscrossing the sky.

“You can’t see it like that, Shiro,” Lance says, but Keith’s the one who grabs his human arm and pulls him down between them, so that they’re arranged in parallel lines. Keith shows him the fox.

“I see it,” Shiro says, arms tucked tight over his chest.

When asked, Shiro sees a tree, a good old Earth pine, stretching over their heads. Keith wants to see it too and leans closer.

Shiro relaxes, but slowly. It’s enough.

It’s enough so that when he lets his arm fall from tracing the image of something unphysical he lets it rest against Keith’s. It’s enough so that when Lance sits up straight, animated and dramatic in his story about constellations, he lets him collapse back down onto his shoulder. It’s enough so that Keith curls in towards him, so that when Lance starts draping overlong limbs onto him, he allows it to happen.

What Lance does is a slippery, subtle thing, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it, maybe the only thing about Lance that’s like that. Keith knows. He’s fallen victim to it countless times, the way Lance is there and then suddenly Lance is _on_ him, without ever knowing how he got there. Watching it in action is something else. Even as Shiro turns his attention to Lance he seems unaware that Lance is pouring himself all over him, or if he knows, he makes no move to stop it.

“What?” Shiro asks when Lance looks at him with both eyebrows raised. He’s now pressed almost entirely against Shiro’s chest, no longer looking up at the stars overhead but down at the little frown on Shiro’s face.

“You know what,” Lance says, and kisses him.

Keith watches them, curled on his side, watches them gain a new feel for each other. Shiro doesn’t resist, not in the way Keith feared he might, but he is slow and careful and measured. It’s such a contrast to Lance’s hasty boldness. He thinks of all his own kisses with Lance as crashes, collisions. This is not that. This is a gradual revolution.

Lance makes himself steady and even for Shiro as they open to each other. There’s a little bit of mutual hesitance as they probe deeper, but then they forget it. Lance presses closer, Shiro puts his hands on his hips. Keith’s heart is wild in his chest, and he drags his fingertips along Lance’s calf, an anchor, a reminder. Grinning, Lance breaks away to breathe and readjust, then slides easily back in. He extends a hand for Keith to hold, and Keith takes it, burning and grateful. He could, very happily, watch this for hours.

Lance pulls back fully this time, sits himself upright on Shiro’s stomach, knees on the metal surface on either side of his torso. He looks down at Keith and grins, which seems to remind Shiro of his presence. Shiro, who, on the other hand, looks at Keith and blanches.

“What are you—,” Shiro half-asks. His frown is back, his eyes shadowed.

“I’m _waiting for you_ ,” Keith says. And waits some more.

Shiro twists as far as he can under Lance to look at him straight-on. Keith involuntarily tenses, his eyes squeezing shut in preparation and his hands balling into fists. Shiro sure takes his damn time, sliding his hand up the side of Keith’s neck and cupping his jaw. They rest there for a moment, Keith quaking with potential energy.

He thinks of blazing desert days and sleepless nights that felt neverending, of being curled in on himself and trying not to cry, and measures them against what he’s feeling now. It’s the second time in his life that he’s ever kissed Shiro, and the taste of it is nowhere near as empty, dead-ended, as the first. The part of him that bruises Lance’s lips when he kisses him melts under Shiro’s hands, and he feels like he could sift through his fingers.

            B.

“I don’t—I’m not…. It’s not good for you two, or the team—,” Shiro tries to say, and they allow him a moment to try and articulate before crashing in.

“Stop,” says Keith, pressing his face into the crook of Shiro’s neck.

“Come on, Shiro,” Lance says, holding Shiro’s face between his hands. “We’ve got you.”

 

VII.

It’s uncomfortable, a little bit, the metal of the lion harsh and unforgiving, but the landscape is right and the feeling is there. Shiro keeps looking at Lance, his eyebrows raised, like he’s asking for permission. Lance both finds this hilarious and anxiety-inducing. The idea of being deferred to, by Shiro of all people, is a jittering high. He rides it out, because nothing is wrong right now, really. In fact, everything is _right_.

But Shiro gives him that look again, as he’s pulling Keith bare. He shouldn’t be looking at Lance right now, he should be savoring every inch of Keith as it surfaces from under the armor. Lance certainly is, appreciating the glow of Keith’s skin in the moonlight. He ignores Shiro’s eyes to dive in and nip at Keith’s hipbone. Keith gives a responsive shiver. Lance’s breath catches.

They rearrange to make Keith comfortable. Lance holds him in his lap between his legs, back-to-chest, arms around him. He takes a moment to dwell on the feeling of Keith’s skin, unbearably smooth, and the jut of his shoulder blades, before he turns his attention to Shiro. Shiro, who is kneeling before the both of them, watching Keith’s face for signs of discomfort as he slides his hands, one organic and one metallic, down beneath him.

Keith is feeling anything but uncomfortable. Lance doesn’t have to be able to see his face to know that. He can feel it in the way that he’s fallen loose in Lance’s arms. Even in intimacy it takes a lot to separate him from his defiance, his harshness, but Shiro has done it in a matter of kisses. Keith brings the back of his hand up against his mouth, like he’s trying to shield himself, but his limbs are pliant and he yields when Lance takes his hand to kiss it.

Lance looks around, Keith’s wrist against his lips. They’re up _high_ , way off the reflective ground, and for all the stretch of the sky they could be the only ones in the universe. The moons travel and the stars spin but it feels like an unbroken infinity right now. It’s just bright enough to see everything he wants to see, just dark enough for the stars to be clear.

Shiro leans forward and brings Lance back with a press of his lips. Keith’s breathing hitches between them and Lance can’t let go of his hand, even as he licks into Shiro’s mouth. He’s getting a little sloppier, Shiro, but there’s still something so meticulous about the way he kisses, attentive and proactive and slow. Keith’s wriggling gives Lance an idea of what his fingers are like, too. Gentle and leisurely, almost teasing in the time he takes, probably. Lance backs away to pant against Shiro’s mouth for a moment, appreciating his own forethought in stowing a small bottle of lube in his suit pocket. It’s what’s made this possible.

“Keith?” Shiro asks.

“Please.” Keith growls it, then whines it.

Lance knows how long and how much Keith has wanted this and, fuck, he’s wanted it too. He sits up a little straighter to watch, before realizing that Shiro’s eyes are seeking him out again. There’s a desperation there, but also a fear, and a question, and a respect. Lance’s chest could not be more full of warmth.

He gives Shiro a grin and a single nod. _Get to it already_.

Shiro takes a deep breath. He’s slow and restrained, but Keith’s fingers tighten around Lance’s anyway. It’s not what he’s used to, but he soundlessly grits his teeth and holds on. Lance’s free hand skirts down his body and works him leisurely. He wants to put him at ease but Keith _is_ at ease, his dazed eyes on Shiro. And Shiro’s looking back, at him and then at Lance, who finds his expression comforting and Keith’s grip blissful.

When Shiro’s all in, they still for a moment. Lance can’t help but feel the grin on his face, because Keith’s head is lolling back against his shoulder and Shiro is wearing an expression of reverence like he’s seen heaven. But he hasn’t seen _anything_ yet, really.

“Well?” Lance asks, and Keith chokes out another, “Please.”

It’s almost quiet at first, Keith biting his lower lip and Shiro ever so tender and rhythmic. Lance pushes his mouth against Keith’s exposed throat, feeling and listening to the spikes in his breathing. It’s such a warm sound, and he smiles against his skin before sucking a dark spot into it. Keith noses Lance up, finds his lips, groans into his mouth when Shiro changes his angle. Lance swallows it, eats him up, and lets Keith’s motions and his own be entirely dictated by Shiro. The little friction he finds against Keith’s back is a bit infuriating, but Lance can be patient. Keith’s been waiting longer.

Keith loses the ability to focus so Lance lets him fall away, fall apart. It’s okay because Shiro’s pulled in close, and he rests his forehead against Keith’s even as Keith shuts his eyes and moans. It’s a moment they’re having for them, but Lance isn’t forgotten, not by Keith’s hand that won’t loosen its grip, not by Shiro’s fingers curled at his waist.

The whole thing plays out like a sunrise blooming, slow and beautiful, and in the end Lance is left with his arms full of a Keith whose wide eyes stare heavenwards. For a long moment, Keith rests against Lance’s chest. They all breathe, hearts slowing. But then Keith pulls himself out of Lance’s lap, and when Lance looks up again both gazes are on him. Keith’s crouching and poised, a cat ready to pounce, and Shiro has his weight all the way forward, leaning on an arm. Lance feels like prey.

Lance _is_ prey. Oh, is he ever.

Keith and Shiro look at each other, smiles dragging at their lips. They start for him at the same time.

Lance swears he dies there, laying back on top of the Black Lion, surrounded on all sides by stars and Shiro and Keith, Shiro and Keith, _shiro and keith_

 

VIII.

In conclusion, Keith _remembers_. He remembers what it was like on those nights in the desert when he couldn’t sleep, but he couldn’t be awake either, and how his ceiling looked on those nights, so familiar and so menacing. He remembers the way his chest felt, full of rocks and water and other things that don’t belong inside of human ribcages. He remembers what it was like to so wholeheartedly, unflinchingly believe that he would never in his life feel this way about another person, to want to sacrifice everything that is himself to them. And he remembers Lance proving him wrong.

In conclusion, Keith watches Lance take Shiro’s cybernetic hand and lace their fingers together and pretend not to notice when Shiro flinches back. He watches Shiro relax into it, watches him let himself have this.

In conclusion, there’s now empirically-gathered evidence that Altean beds are not built for three, and Shiro is in fact strong enough to princess carry Lance while Keith clings onto his back, and nothing drives Keith crazy like watching Lance suck on Shiro’s inorganic fingertips, and Keith has learned the importance of patience.

In conclusion, Keith isn’t waiting for home anymore.

**Author's Note:**

> please hang out w me [i'm](http://epiproctan.tumblr.com) [lonely](https://twitter.com/epiproctan)


End file.
